1. Field
The present specification generally relates to glass articles and, more specifically, to ion exchangeable glass articles.
2. Technical Background
Glass articles are commonly utilized in a variety of consumer and commercial applications such as electronic applications, automotive applications, and even architectural applications. For example, consumer electronic devices, such as mobile phones, computer monitors, GPS devices, televisions and the like, commonly incorporate glass substrates as part of a display. In some of these devices, the glass substrate is also utilized to enable touch functionality, such as when the displays are touch screens. Many of these devices are portable and, as such, the glass articles incorporated in the devices need to be sufficiently robust to withstand impact and/or damage, such as scratches and the like, during both use and transport.
As both the aesthetic design and functionality of electronic devices continue to develop, glass articles with increasingly complex shapes are being incorporated into such devices. Such complex shapes may include curves and contours, such as when the glass articles are non-planar. However, current glass compositions used to make such glass articles often have high softening temperatures and high liquid coefficients of thermal expansion which makes forming the glass compositions into complex shapes difficult.
Moreover, such glass substrates need to be compatible with large-scale sheet glass manufacturing methods, such as down-draw processes and slot-draw processes which are commonly used today to manufacture thin glass substrates for incorporation into electronic devices.